Harvesting is a bastard as far as I'm concerned, maybe cos it's so important to get right and you have to put the effort in.... as a stoner, I hate putting any kind of effort into anything!
The Night Queen took 3 nights to completely crop and box. The Glueberry is flushing and I was supposed to start on her tonight.... the whole weekend will be spent cropping her (once everyone's gone to bed), usual routine of Premiership Football, reading glasses and headtorch, and Nitrile gloves so I dont get hash all over me.
The way it's looking, Glueberry this weekend, White Widow next weekend and Blue Amnesia the following weekend. Now you can see why I hate harvest time so much!
Anyway, this is how I do it.... making sure the clippers are well clean (I use a tiny bit of WD40 to lubricate the blades and stop the resin sticking as much)..... remember to save all that lovely scissor hash!
I just chop a branch off, then cut off all the side stems leaving 1 cola at the end..... manicure all leaves off, and lay it down, while I get on with manicuring all the side stems. I do it over some sheets of that packing paper you can get from removalists.... nice to lay bud on as it will absorb some moisture, you can lay another few sheets on top between shifts, and you can sweep up all the magic dust at the end and skin it up! I usually make a big pile of trimmed side stems and a separate gallery of colas.
Here's a pic of some Daiquiri Lime.... long stems at the top and side stems at the bottom....
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That was only some of it LOL
Once I've done all the manicuring, it's time to dry.....
I dry a few different ways. I used to lay everything out on hanging mesh baskets.... but all my bud ended up with flat surfaces.... plus it was a cumbersome device that seemed to pull the trichomes off the bud.
Now I have 2 main ways.... trim up main stems and hang them in those packing boxes that removal companies do.... loads of perforations in the sides with a screwdriver and some string lines threaded into the top. I close up (but not seal) the boxes and put them up ontop of the tent for a bit of warmth.
Here's some Toofless Alien to show you what I mean....
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All the small stems, I manicure, clip off into separate buds, grade according to size, and then line the bottom of brown paper sandwich bags with the bud. Roll the edges of the bags over 3 times and hang them from one of those sock hangers.... the oval ones that have about 20 pegs on.
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The sock hangers are a great investment... I must have about 6 of them..... great for hanging small stems that you cant be bothered to snip the buds off. I load up a hanger full of stems and lower it into a perforated cardboard box, and have it so the stems dangle down and dry.
I do this now instead of the brown paper bags, mainly cos it cuts out the time where you have to snip off, grade bud and load the bags... less disturbance for those trichomes too... plus more time for me to get caned.
I usually grade A as large buds, B as small buds (of grade A quality) and scrap, which is anything fluffy that either gets smoked in an emergency (rare these days cos I've been lucky with my hauls), or to make oil with. Here's some graded Glueberry ready to jar up....
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I don't bother connecting ducting and pushing air throough the boxes.... Never had mould in the boxes, but I make sure the room that the boxes are in is well ventilated, and in humid conditions, I have a dehumidifier going to help..... this way I get my bud dry in about 8-10 days.
Once dry, dry enough so the small stems crack, I clip off all the buds, grade them, weigh them, and jar them with a few Boveda 62's in Mason Jars and leave for 4 weeks to cure.
Enjoy the harvest Bro!
